Graduation Reflections

Pinkerton Academy original Buildings

This time of year is when I reflect on my own graduations over the years from the different schools I attended; Pembroke Academy, New Hampshire Technical Institute of Portsmouth and Springfield College now known as Southern New Hampshire University. My own children graduated Pinkerton Academy in Derry, New Hampshire one of the oldest continuing running schools in America.

Pinkerton Academy will be celebrating it's 200th anniversary in 2014. The Spring 2013 Pinkerton Alumnus  provides a brief history of Pinkerton Academy and information of the upcoming celebration. 

Robert Frost, the well known American poet, Pulitzer Prize, taught at Pinkerton from 1906-1911.

Notable alumni are numerous that include: first Astronaut in space, Alan Shepard; former president of Dartmouth College,Samuel Colcord Bartlett; American Olympic ice hockey player, Tricia Dunn; Civil War Brevet Brigadier General, Aaron Fletcher Stevens; among many others over the years.

I join in celebrating my brother's and niece's graduations. My brother will be ordained on 8 June 2013 as an interfaith minister. My niece will graduate from my Alma mater, Pembroke Academy on 16 June 2013. 

The list of those graduating is excellent informational source for genealogist and families looking for their ancestors. That possibly could include someone from Harvard as early as 1642. 

Harvard in Cambridge,  Massachusetts has a list of their graduates all the way back to 1642, when nine colonists graduated. In 1634, ground was broken for the "College at Newtowne", later to become known as Harvard,  just fours years after families from the Winthrop Fleet settle the Watertown, Massachusetts area. 

Dear Myrtle would say "Happy Family Tree Climbing."